This Week in Art 6.5-6.11: Tania Bruguera Launches Immigrant Empowerment Initiative in Queens

Artist Tania Bruguera with members of Mujeres en Movimiento. Photo: NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.

Last week Tania Bruguera announced the launch of the latest project from her Immigrant Movement International project: CycleNews. As the first public artist-in-residence at New York’s Department of Cultural Affairs, Bruguera has partnered with community advocacy group Mujeres en Movimiento (Women in Motion). Mujeres en Movimiento members will bike around Corona, Queens and nearby neighborhoods to deliver pamphlets explaining the services offered by the Office of Immigrant Affairs, like municipal identification cards and information on immigrants’ rights when approached by law enforcement.

Bikers will also conduct surveys with residents, measuring whether immigrants feel like they are part of the community, and the results will be shared with government officials. “The idea for CycleNews is to create a two way street where immigrant communities are able to trust the government and, equally important, the government demonstrates that it trusts the immigrant communities of New York City,” said the artist. CycleNews may expand to other New York neighborhoods if the pilot program in Corona is successful.

Also this week:


Events & exhibitions

New York City

  • A new exhibition by Ai Weiwei and architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron opens Wednesday at the Park Avenue Armory. Hansel & Gretel, on view June 7-August 6, examines the ways in which increased surveillance has altered how we view the world.
  • Last week the MoMA opened a new exhibition entitled Inbox: Charles Atlas. Composed of the artist’s three-part video installation The Illusion of Democracy, the piece will be on view through July 30. [Read a review in Crave.]

Raleigh, NC

St. Louis

  • Glenn Ligon has curated an exhibition entitled Blue Blackwhich opens Friday at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Inspired by his experience with the Pulitzer’s Ellsworth Kelly wall sculpture of the same name, Blue Black uses two colors as a base to “pose timely and nuanced questions” about language, identity, and perception. On view through October 7. [Read an interview with the artist about the exhibition in the New York Times.]

Oberlin, OH

Sarasota, FL

Los Angeles


Jerusalem

Istanbul

  • A new international group exhibition at ARTER includes work by Shana Moulton, Cindy Sherman, James Turrell, and Kara Walker among others. Taking its title from John Berger’s 1972 text, Ways of Seeing is on view through August 13 and explores the “various formalistic strategies that artists employ to re-configure our perception of the world.”

Moscow


It’s impossible to include all the incredible exhibitions and art events happening this week in a single post. If there’s something you feel should have been included in today’s roundup, leave a comment below!